The Following article originated at and
is taken from DiscoverTheNetworks.com

Based in Washington, DC, the
3.1
million-member National Education Association (NEA) is the
largest labor union in the United States. It represents public
school teachers and support personnel; faculty and staffers in
colleges and universities; retired educators; and college students
preparing to become teachers. The NEA’s
mission is “to advocate for education professionals and to unite
our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public
education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and
interdependent world.”

The NEA pursues these goals through its 14,000+
local affiliate
organizations (which are active in fundraising, conducting
professional workshops, and negotiating teacher contracts); its 51
state affiliates
(which “lobby legislators for the resources schools need”); and its
Washington, DC-based
national
headquarters (which “lobbies Congress and federal agencies on
behalf of its members and public schools, supports and coordinates
innovative projects, works with other education organizations and
friends of public education, [and] provides training and assistance
to its affiliates”).

The NEA was founded in 1850 as the National
Teachers Association, and adopted its present name in 1857.
Promoting government-owned public schools and “modern” pedagogical
ideas, this union permitted
no private school teachers to join its ranks. These
government-owned-and-run schools were modeled on statist European
education in Prussia, and attracted socialist activist teachers who
saw public school students as perfect subjects for re-engineering
society. That remolding began with the anti-Catholic objectives of
Horace Mann (1796-1859) and expanded to the anti-religious humanism
of John Dewey (1859-1952).

In a 1935 report presented at the 72nd annual NEA convention, the
union's future Executive Secretary Willard Givens
wrote:
“A dying laissez-faire must be completely destroyed and all of us …
must be subjected to a large degree of social control…. The major
function of the school is the social orientation of the individual.
It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new
social order.”

In a 2003 article titled “NEA
Hastens Death of American Education,” veteran journalist Ralph
de Toledano
wrote that in 1938 “the Institute for Social Research, founded
by the Comintern, appeared on the
Columbia University campus, taking over the Teachers College,
the country’s most influential school of education.” “Better known
as the
Frankfurt School,” de Toledano continued, “… [the Institute]
eschewed the economic aspects of Marxism and promulgated a
substitute based on Marx’s 1843 preachments. Later labeled
neo-Marxism, the program called for the destruction of religion, the
family, education and all moral values, along with the capture of
the intellectuals and the instruments of mass communication such as
the press, radio and films. To this it appended a new Freudianism,
which reduced human relationships to rampant sexuality and the
grossest pleasure principles -- a program its secret founder boasted
‘will make America stink.’”

Added
de Tolenado: “The Frankfurt School’s program, implemented by the
NEA, made the goal of education not to educate the young but to give
them an anarchic ‘self-esteem’ and deprive them of any sense of
what’s wrong or right ... [a]nd it preached the alienation of
children from parental guidance, urging them to ‘inform’ on their
families, as in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany.”

The NEA’s explicitly stated quest to
“foster positive self-esteem” in schoolchildren continues to
this day. In his book Inside American Education, Thomas
Sowell observes: “Perhaps nothing so captures what is wrong with
American schools as the results of an international study of
13-year-olds which found that Koreans ranked first in mathematics
and Americans last. When asked if they thought they were ‘good at
mathematics,’ only 23 percent of Korean youngsters said ‘yes’ --
compared to 68 percent of American 13-year-olds. The American
educational dogma that students should ‘feel good about themselves’
was a success in its own terms -- though not in any other terms.”

In 1966 the NEA merged
with the historically black American Teachers Association (ATA),
which was originally founded as the National Association of Colored
Teachers. The NEA and ATA had long enjoyed a close working
relationship prior to the merger.

In the 1960s and 1970s, teachers were becoming unionized at a faster
pace than ever before. Precisely at this time, student SAT scores, a
popular and objective achievement barometer, deteriorated
dramatically. Confronted by this embarrassing fact, the NEA
responded by
calling for the abolition of standardized testing of students.

In recent decades the NEA has been outspoken about its positions vis
a vis a host of
social and political topics, including abortion, sex education,
teen pregnancy, school prayer, socialized medicine, affordable
housing, drug testing, prisoner rights, and bilingual education. In
July 1997 the union formally adopted a series of resolutions that
called for:

“making available all methods of [taxpayer-funded] family
planning to women and men unable to take advantage of private
facilities,” and “the implementation of community-operated,
school-based family planning clinics that will provide intensive
counseling by trained personnel”

“sex education programs, including information on ... birth
control and family planning ... [and] diversity of sexual
orientation”

“programs for [teen parents] that include flexible
scheduling and attendance policies, development of self-esteem,
on-site child care services ...”

opposition to “any federal legislation or mandate that would
require school districts to schedule a moment of silence”

a rejection of “efforts to legislate English as the official
language, [which] disregard cultural pluralism [and] deprive
those in need of education, social services, and employment”

a nuclear freeze by the United States military (Notably, the
NEA currently
endorses the anti-military-recruitment organization
Leave My Child Alone, which is a project of
Working Assets,
ACORN, and Mainstreet Moms Operation Blue.)

“affordable, comprehensive health care [as] the right of
every [U.S.] resident”

the notion that “all members of our society have the right
to adequate housing”

the idea that “incarcerated persons … are entitled to equal
access to educational, recreational, and rehabilitative programs
within all correctional systems”

Nine years later, at its 2006 national
convention, the NEA
proposed that all public schools should unequivocally support
homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (polygamy, etc.). In
the NEA’s view, this perspective should be transmitted -- via
classroom instruction and textbooks alike -- to all children at all
age levels, without any requirement for the permission or knowledge
of parents.

At its 2007 national convention in Philadelphia, the NEA passed a
number of
additional resolutions -- some founded on the axiom that
American society is inherently discriminatory and unjust, and others
advocating massive increases in taxpayer funding of school programs
and extra-curricular activities. For example, the NEA stated that:

“funds must be provided … to eliminate portrayal of race,
gender, sexual orientation and gender identification stereotypes
in the public schools”

“full-day, every day kindergarten programs should be fully
funded”

“federal, state, and ... local governments should provide
funds sufficient to make pre-kindergarten available for all
three- and four-year-old children”

tax dollars should “suppor[t] early childhood education
programs in the public schools for children from birth through
age eight”

early childhood education programs should "be available to
all children on an equal basis"; "should include mandatory
kindergarten with compulsory attendance"; and "should include a
full continuum of services ... including child care, child
development, ... diversity-based curricula, special education,
and appropriate bias-free screening devices"

“excellence in the classroom can best be attained by small
class size … an optimum class size of fifteen students in
regular programs and a proportionately lower number in programs
for students with exceptional needs”

“to achieve or maintain racial diversity, it may be
necessary for elementary/secondary schools, colleges, and
universities to take race into account in making decisions as to
student admissions, assignments, and/or transfers” (i.e., the
NEA supports busing and similar measures to micro-manage racial
balance)

“all members of the educational community [should] examine
assumptions and prejudices, including, but not limited to,
racism, sexism, and homophobia, that might limit the
opportunities and growth of students and education employees”

"any immigration policy that denies educational
opportunities to immigrants and their children regardless of
their immigration status" should be rejected

“financial aid and in-state tuition to state colleges and
universities” should be accessible for students who are illegal
aliens

“[illegal] students who have resided in the United States
for at least five years at the time of high school graduation
should be granted amnesty by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, granted legal residency status, and allowed to apply
for U.S. citizenship”

“[non-English-speaking] students should be placed in
bilingual education programs to receive instruction in their
native language from qualified teachers until such time as
English proficiency is achieved”

“[m]ulti-cultural education should promote the recognition
of individual and group differences and similarities in order to
reduce racism, homophobia, ethnic and all other forms of
prejudice, and discrimination and to develop self-esteem as well
as respect for others”

educational programs should promote: "an awareness of the
effects of past, present, and future population growth patterns
on world civilization, human survival, and the environment;
solutions to environmental problems such as nonrenewable
resource depletion, pollution, global warming, ozone depletion,
and acid precipitation and deposition; [and] the recognition of
and participation in such activities as Earth Day"

“global warming causes significant measureable damage to the
earth and its inhabitants,” and “humans must take steps to
change activities that contribute to global warming”

“educational strategies for teaching peace and justice
issues should include … activities dealing with the effects of
... weapons of mass destruction, strategies for disarmament,
[and] methods to achieve peace"

"curricular materials should ... cover major contributing
factors to conflict, such as economic disparity, demographic
variables, unequal political power and resource distribution,
and the indebtedness of the developing world”

“proven conflict-resolution strategies, materials, and
activities” should be utilized "at all educational levels"

“home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot
provide the student with a comprehensive education experience"

"home-schooled students should not participate in any
extracurricular activities in the public schools”

“every child should have direct and confidential access to
comprehensive health, social, and psychological programs and
services” which include “comprehensive school-based,
community-funded student health care clinics” and, “if deemed
appropriate by local choice, family-planning counseling and
access to birth control methods with instruction in their use”

“hiring policies and practices must be nondiscriminatory and
include provisions for the recruitment of a diverse teaching
staff”

“affirmative action plans and procedures ... should be
developed and implemented”

“affordable, comprehensive health care, including
prescription drug coverage, is the right of every [U.S.]
resident”

“the
United Nations furthers world peace and promotes the rights
of all people by preventing war, racism, and genocide”

“the United States should ratify the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court and recognize and support its
authority and jurisdiction”

“the governments of all nations must respect and protect the
basic human and civil rights of every individual, including
equal access to education as embodied in the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights”

“efforts to legislate English as the official language
disregard cultural pluralism [and] deprive those in need of
education, social services, and employment”

In addition to the foregoing resolutions, the NEA
supports “the movement toward self-determination by American
Indians/Alaska natives” and believes that these groups should
control their own education. It further holds that all schools
should
designate separate months to celebrate Black History, Hispanic
Heritage, Native American Indian Heritage, Asian/Pacific Heritage,
Women’s History, Lesbian and Gay History. This proposal is founded
on the premise that members of these demographics are victimized by
persistent, widespread discrimination.

In the NEA's estimation, America's alleged inequities are by no
means limited to the domestic sphere but extend also to U.S. foreign
policy. After 9/11, for instance, the union's position was that
America had long mistreated and exploited the peoples of other
nations, and thus essentially had sown the seeds of the rage that
ultimately found its expression in the 9/11 attacks.

Immediately after 9/11, the NEA issued guidelines
on how teachers should discuss the topic with their students. These
guidelines stressed the need for children to be tolerant and
respectful of all cultures -- and said virtually nothing about the
fact that the U.S. was at war with an enemy that was aiming to
annihilate it. The NEA came so close to blaming America for having
provoked the 9/11 attacks, that a public outcry ensued and the union
was forced to remove the teacher guidelines from its website.

In the summer of 2002, as the first
anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks neared, the NEA again posted
guidelines on its national website stating that classroom
teachers should not “suggest any group [was] responsible” for the
previous year's atrocities. Rather, the union advised teachers
to have their students “discuss historical instances of American
intolerance.”

The NEA directed special praise to a 9/11
curriculum designed by Milwaukee fifth-grade teacher Robert
Peterson, who explained the importance of helping students to: (a)
“understand that they live in a global village”; (b) ask “why” the
attacks may have been aimed against America; and (c) develop empathy
for people elsewhere in the world. The NEA
summarized what it considered to be one of Peterson's exemplary
lesson plans:

“[Peterson] leads the children in a study of world population and
distribution of income, and then takes them outdoors to illustrate
their research on a large world map drawn on the playground
blacktop. With each child representing 240 million people, the kids
spread out—15 students in Asia, three in Europe, three in Africa,
one in North America, two in South America, none in Australia.
Chocolate cookies are then distributed according to each continent's
gross domestic product. Six cookies are shared by the 15 people in
Asia. Nine are shared by three Europeans, one cookie for South
America, just half a cookie for Africa, eight for the lone North
American. Most students have strong reactions and many
questions. Why are there so many people in Asia? Why are the
Europeans and Americans so rich? Some try negotiating with other
‘nations,’ while others even suggest war to even the odds. Peterson
says his students begin to glimpse how the world's enormous
inequalities could lead to animosity.”

Of course the NEA concerns itself not only with social and political
issues in the U.S. and abroad, but it also is actively involved in
negotiating the terms under which its member teachers work. For
example, the union adamantly opposes merit pay (or "performance
contracting") for public school teachers --
characterizing such
a system as “detrimental to public education." Delegates to the
summer 2000 NEA convention openly declared their categorical
opposition to “any … system of compensation based on an evaluation
of an education employee’s performance.” In 2007 the union
elaborated, “competency testing must not be used as a condition
of employment, license retention, evaluation, placement, ranking, or
promotion of licensed teachers”

Not only is the NEA opposed to merit pay, but for decades it has
manifested a marked hostility toward outstanding teachers. The
example of world-famous math teacher Jaime Escalante is
instructive. According to Escalante (the subject of the 1988
Hollywood movie Stand and Deliver), who developed the most
successful inner-city math program in America, teacher union
officials chastised him for attracting “too many” students to his
calculus classes. When Escalante finally resigned from the high
school which he and his students had made famous, local teacher
union officials circulated a celebratory note that read: “We got him
out!”

The NEA is similarly
opposed to vouchers which would permit parents to divert a
portion of their tax dollars away from the public school system, and
to use those funds instead to help cover the tuition costs
for private schools to which they might prefer to send their
children. In the NEA's calculus, such voucher programs "compromise
the Association's commitment to free, equitable, universal, and
quality public education for every student.” (Helping the NEA to
lobby against vouchers and parental choice have been such
organizations as
People for the American Way, the
American Civil Liberties Union, and the
NAACP.)

The NEA ranks among the most influential entities in modern American
politics.
Wrote journalist
Ralph de Toledano in 2003: “The NEA’s openly avowed goal today: ‘To
tap the legal, political and economic powers of the U.S.
Congress. [It wants] … sufficient clout [to] roam the halls of
Congress and collect votes to reorder the priorities of the United
States of America.’”

Specifically, the NEA's closest political ties are with the
Democratic Party. In 1976 the union used its financial resources
and manpower to help elect
Jimmy Carter to the U.S. presidency. After the election,
Carter in turn thanked the union by creating the Department of
Education in 1979, prompting one NEA executive to boast that this
was the only union in the United States with its own cabinet
department. At recent Democratic National Conventions, up to a
quarter of the delegates have been members of teachers unions.

Today the NEA is a
member organization of the
America Votes coalition of get-out-the-vote organizations.
America Votes is itself a member of the so-called
Shadow Party, a nationwide network of activist groups whose
agendas are ideologically Left, and which are engaged in campaigning
for the Democrats. NEA’s fellow America Votes coalition members
include:
ACORN, America
Coming Together, the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor –
Congress of Industrial Organizations); AFSCME (American Federation
of State, County, and Municipal Employees); the American Federation
of Teachers; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (renamed
the
American Association for Justice); the
Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund;
Democracy For America;
EMILY's List; the
League of Conservation Voters; the
Media Fund; the
MoveOn.org Voter Fund; the
NAACP National Voter Fund;
NARAL Pro-Choice America;
People for the American Way; the
Planned Parenthood Action Fund; the
Service Employees International Union; the
Sierra Club;
USAction; and 21st Century Democrats.

Of the $341 million the NEA received from September 2004 to August
2005, some $295 million came from member dues. In turn, many of
those revenues were used to promote political agendas and
candidates -- almost all of them Democrats. For several decades the
NEA has been
among the largest contributors of money and personnel to the
Democratic Party and its candidates. Between 1990 and 2008, 93
percent of the union's political donations went to Democrats. (And
virtually all of the rest went to the most liberal Republicans
running in primaries, not in general elections, to tilt the
political playing field even farther left).

As reporter Lowell Ponte puts it, “The astronomical amount
of political money thus coerced from workers is the lifeblood of
[the] Democratic Party.... The NEA functions as a giant
money-laundering machine for the Democrats. Democrats impose laws
that let the union take a big piece of every employee’s paycheck,
which in public schools comes from the taxpayers. And the unions pay
for this power and privilege by splitting this taxpayer money with
partisan Democrat politicians to keep the machine operating. Public
schools are an ultimate example of this synergy, not only because
they are government monopolies but also because already-taxed
parents are required by law to school their children, to offer their
offspring as hostages to this money-extorting government-union
machine.” Because the NEA works so closely with the Democratic
Party, it promotes the leftist ideologies and worldviews reflected
in its aforementioned resolutions.

Studies have shown that as few as 40 percent of NEA members are
Democrats, the remaining 60 percent splitting evenly between
Republicans and independents. According to the NEA’s own internal
polling, half
of the union's members identify themselves as conservative. Yet the
NEA, like other unions, claims an absolute right to spend dues as it
sees fit, regardless of the viewpoints of the teachers it nominally
represents.

The NEA has a permanent, paid, full-time staff of
at least 1,800 United Service (UniServ) employees who function
as political operatives -- more than the Republican and Democratic
Parties combined. In a presidential election year, this army of
union foot soldiers is tantamount to a political
donation of more than $100 million to Democrats. They are
trained at radical boot camps, paid and typically given graduate
school credit for attending. One NEA handbook is titled Alinsky
for Teacher Organizers and teaches activists how to use the
confrontation and pressure tactics of the late radical leftist Saul
Alinsky.

As Joel Mowbray
reports in a Capital Research Center study, the Virginia-based
Landmark Legal Foundation (LLF) in recent years has investigated the
NEA for possible illegal use of tax-exempt funds. According to LLF
President Mark Levin, the NEA has “kept information from its
dues-paying members and the general public that clearly shows
improper use of tax-exempt money to influence elections.”

LLF’s investigation traces its path back to the 1996
presidential election, when the NEA was a key constituent of a
“National Coordinated Campaign Steering Committee” (NCCSC) whose
function was to help Democrats win as many national, state, and
local elections as possible; to determine campaign strategy for
Democratic candidates at all levels of government; and to coordinate
spending on their behalf.
Joining the NEA on this Committee were the AFL-CIO, the
Democratic National Committee (DNC), the 1996
Clinton-Gore
Campaign, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic
Leadership Campaign Committee, the Democratic Governors Association,
and
EMILY's List.

Because the NEA is a tax-exempt organization, the federal government
places certain
restrictions on how the union may use its immense revenues.
Specifically, the government requires that whatever funds a union
earmarks for political activities designed to influence an election,
must be disclosed on IRS Forms 990 and 1120-POL. The latter of these
must be filed by any tax-exempt group whose political expenditures
exceed $100 in a single calendar year, and requires some disclosure
about the details of those donations.

Yet from 1994-96 the NEA reported that it
spent no money at all on politics. This is because an honest
disclosure of its political expenditures would have entitled union
members, if they objected to having their mandatory dues used to
finance Democrat causes, to recover the portion of those dues that
had been so earmarked. Also, union revenues used for partisan
political purposes were taxable in certain cases.

Contrary to its claim that its political expenditures were
nonexistent, the NEA not only spent millions of dollars on issue ads
and get-out-the-vote drives for Democrats, but it also coordinated
its campaign strategies with the Democratic National Committee
(DNC). Confirming this was a key piece of evidence acquired by the
Federal Election Commission (FEC) -- an unsigned Coordinated
Campaign
memo from Democratic Rep. Bob Etheridge. This memo stated: “When
the DNC and its national Partners including … the AFL-CIO and the
NEA … agree on the contents of a plan, each national partner will
give their funding commitment to the state.”

In other words, if the NEA disapproved of a particular state
strategy,
it could prevent its "partners" -- the DNC and AFL-CIO -- from
funding it, and the measure could effectively be stopped. This was
akin to a veto power over Democratic Party political action
plans. In other words, the NEA dictated terms to the DNC, not vice
versa.

“Those of us who have long dismissed the National Education
Association as a tool of the Democratic Party have been badly
mistaken,”
wrote columnist William McGurn in 2001 in the Wall Street
Journal. “Apparently it’s just the opposite ... it’s the
Democratic Party that is the tool of the NEA.”

Beginning in 2005,
new federal rules required large labor unions like the NEA to
report in greater detail (to the U.S. Department of Labor) how they
spent their money. Under these new disclosure regulations, it
was confirmed that an immense amount of NEA money was being
spent for purposes having nothing to do with the union's purported
priorities (i.e., better wages, benefits, and working conditions for
teachers and school staff). For example, the NEA
reported that
during the 2004-05 fiscal year, it had spent $56.8 million on "union
administration," $25 million on "political activities and lobbying,"
and $65.5 million on "contributions, gifts, and grants." In other
words, it is possible that up to $90.5 million (the sum of the
latter two categories of expenditures) was earmarked for leftist
political candidates, organizations, and causes. Among these
expenditures were
the
following:

$500,000 to Protect our Public Schools, to campaign against
public charter schools in Washington state

$300,000 to Citizens United to Protect Our Public Safety, to
oppose property tax limits in Maine

$25,000 to the National Coalition on Health Care, which
supports a taxpayer-funded system of socialized medicine

$5,000 to the National Conference of Black Mayors, a group
representing the ideals of its overwhelmingly leftwing members

$75,000 to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which
seeks to help leftwing organizations “more effectively to
fight for social, environmental, and economic justice”

$45,000 to the
League of United Latin American Citizens

$25,000 to the North Carolina Democratic Party Building Fund

$400,000 to the Fund to Protect Social Security, which
seeks to defeat personal investment accounts

$10,000 to the Rock the Vote Education Fund, which aims to
register new young voters who will support leftwing causes and
candidates

$14,000 to the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition

$249,000 to the Floridians for All Committee, which
supports "the construction of a permanent progressive
infrastructure that will help redirect Florida politics in a
more progressive, Democratic direction”

$250,000 to Alliance for Nevada's Working Families, "to
support [a] ballot measure to increase minimum wage"

$40,148 to Brazile & Associates, a firm headed by longtime
Democratic Party consultant and campaign manager
Donna Brazile, which
provides diversity training for American businesses, and all
types of training for political activists.

"What wasn't clear before is how much of a part
the teachers unions play in the wider liberal movement and the
Democratic Party,"
said Michael Antonucci of the Education Intelligence Agency, a
California-based watchdog group. "They're like some philanthropic
organization that passes out grant money to interest groups."

As of 2006, the NEA's $58 million payroll included
over 600 employees and officers, more than half of whom earned
salaries exceeding $100,000 per year. NEA President Reg
Weaver's salary was $439,000.
As of 2004-05, NEA Vice President Dennis Van Roekel earned
$273,000, and Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen earned $272,000. By
contrast, the average classroom teacher
earned $48,000.

According to its
2007
financial report, the NEA’s total assets were $188,710,730. Its
total receipts for the year were $352,958,087. Moreover, the NEA's
aggressive lobbying of Congress has enabled it to benefit from an
archaic law freeing
it from having to pay its $1.6 million in annual property
taxes. No
other labor union in America has been able to negotiate such an
arrangement.

An analysis of the NEA's financial disclosure report for the 2007-08
fiscal year revealed that the union
contributed
$11.7 million to a wide variety of leftwing advocacy groups,
including: ACORN,
the AFL-CIO,
Campaign for America's Future, the
Center for Community Change, the
Children's Defense Fund, the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation,
Democracy Alliance, the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education
Network, the
League of United Latin American Citizens, the
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the
National Urban League, the
National Women's Law Center,
People for the American Way,
Planned Parenthood, the
Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the
Service Employees International Union,
USAction, and the
WAND Education Fund.

In November 2009, the NEA website posted a page titled "Recommended
Reading: Saul Alinsky, The American Organizer." This page
praised
Saul Alinsky's two books -- Rules for Radicals and
Reveille for Radicals -- as "an inspiration" to "every
organizer" and "anyone contemplating action in their community."

In the 2008 and 2010 election-campaign seasons, the NEA
gave a combined total of more than $15.3 million in
contributions to federal candidates; 97 percent of that money went
to Democrats.